What Is Chemistry? Part Two: Emotional Engagement

So we’re talking about chemistry – that ineffable “spark” that theoretically you either feel or you don’t when you meet someone.

The idea of chemistry-as-fate, this moment when two compatible people meet has taken on the level of myth in our culture. It’s become another way of saying “love at first sight” or “soul mates”… the idea that by random chance, you have found someone with whom you just click, something you just “feel in your bones”.

The problem of course, is that it’s not fate that’s pulled you together, it’s a combination of factors including sexual tension, intellectual engagement and emotional connections… and you can make it happen in the people you meet.

Now last time, we talked about the physical aspect: taking attraction and ratcheting it up via sexual tension. This time we’re going to talk about the other side of chemistry: the emotional and intellectual connections that make up that elusive, mythical “connection”.

I Love You For Your Mind…

Physical desire is all well and good, but for true chemistry, you need more than just sexual attraction. Even when you’re burning up the sheets every night and twice on Sundays, the hottest of relationship can be brought down when the two of you simply can’t hold a conversation afterwards or agree on what to watch on Netflix. While “hot and dumb” does have it’s appeal for both genders, most people are looking for more than just animal attraction. They also want to feel that they connect with someone on an emotional and intellectual level.

“What are you thinking about?” “Fire… BAD!”

To that end when we talk about chemistry, we often talk about how “it felt like we had an instant connection,” or “we just had so much to talk about,” or “I just had so much fun I lost track of time!”

In other words: you want to do more than just get inside your date’s pants, you want to get inside their heads.

You Must Communicate Your Passion

Passion is attractive. We are drawn to people who have passion for something in their lives; it indicates that the person we are talking to has depth and interests outside of the hum drum day to day “get up, go to work/school, come home, eat, go to bed”. We are drawn to passion in others because it kindles our own emotions. Passionate people have a certainty about them and when they can talk about the things they are passionate about, it’s hard not to get caught up in their emotional rhythm.

Tom Cruise remains one of my go-to references for how passion can create connections: even if you think he’s a couch-jumping nutjob, you can’t deny the man’s charisma picks you up and carries you along when he gets excited about something… because he can express his passion clearly and without restraint, even when talking about something painfully boring and mundane.

This clip from Mission Impossible 3 is one of my favorite examples of how he communicates his passion for something that is ultimately pretty goddamned dull. He’s unapologetic – he doesn’t say “yeah, my job kind of sucks”, he speaks with pride and enthusiasm. He has a firm gaze and a light tone, speaking with a smile, as opposed to looking down and away, shuffling his feet or otherwise giving an indication that he really isn’t that enthused about his work. He doesn’t get bogged down in technicalities about how traffic is responds like fluid or the history of freeways or dip into insider jargon – cutting straight to the aspects that he finds fascinating in a clear and concise manner.

When you feel passionate about something and you can communicate that passion to other people, they can’t help but feel connected to it.

Interested Is Interesting

Want to get someone interested in you? Show them that you find them fascinating.

We like to think that we’re all special snowflakes with a rich inner core of wonder and beauty waiting for other people to discover it. This is part of why we instinctively like the people who like us and who show interest in our lives; it validates our belief that we are, in fact, awesome.

This isn’t to say that the path to a person’s heart is by shoving your nose as far as possible up their rectum; being a suck-up isn’t going to get you far with anyone who isn’t holding open auditions for the role of “toady”. Instead, you want to make a point of getting to know them by being an active listener.

One of my best friends networks the way other people breathe and can make friends with just about anyone. Her trick is that she immediately shows that she’s interested in hearing what they have to say about any topic that comes up by asking questions, then using those answers as a springboard to getting deeper into what they think. She makes a point to relate to them, pointing out how their experiences or interests intertwine or contrast, and then moves on to asking about another conversational subject. Repeat the process a few times and she comes away with a valuable new contact who thinks she’s a cool person to know.

Most conversations tend to be profoundly one-sided: one person talking, with the other making occasional monosyllabic “yes, I’m still listening” noises while they wait for their opportunity to talk. Active listening, on the other hand, means not just paying attention to what your date has to say, but making a point of engaging them – making sure that you understand and asking questions in order to prompt them to expand upon the topic.

By asking follow up questions, asking to explain something you weren’t sure of or to expand on a subject, you’re showing them that you’re interested in what they have to say.

Making a point to show that you’re listening to them and wanting to know more about what they have to say makes people feel more connected to you. And building chemistry is all about building connections.

Engage Her Emotionally

Part of what makes for good chemistry is to affect someone on an emotional level. We’ve all been on dates where the strongest emotion we felt was apathy and we were hoping for something to catch on fire, if only to relieve the boredom.

“If I leave now, I can make it back home in time for the tail end of the ‘Holmes On Homes’ marathon…”

The worst dates aren’t the ones where you actively dislike someone, they’re the ones where you don’t feel anything the realization that you’re watching precious seconds of your life drain away and you’ll never recover them. It’s all well and good to be able to engage someone intellectually, but you need to spur an emotional reaction as well.

You want to elicit emotions from your dates; we appreciate people who can make us feel excitement, curiosity or the warm-and-fuzzies.

Part of the reason why women rate “a sense of humor” so high on attractive features is because being able to make her laugh is part of being able to make her feel. A guy who can entertain a woman and make her laugh is someone who can get an emotional reaction out of her.

Now getting a reaction out of someone is pretty simple – act like a giant cock and you’ll get them to respond to you. You may also get slapped, insulted and or have pastries thrown at you, but it’s still a reaction.

Getting the reactions you want on the other hand: laughter, excitement, “that’s interesting” or “awwww” are tougher. One of the best ways of taking your date on an emotional journey is through telling stories. Stories are incredible tools when it comes to dating – they keep people entertained, they are a chance to show how awesome your life is without appearing conceited and, critically, when done right, they make people feel. You capture their interest and lead them on an emotional journey while conveying who you are as a person.

It’s easy to make an opportunity to tell some stories about yourself; if you’ve already been making a point to ask questions, you can use those as a springboard to set up information about yourself. If you’re talking about travelling, you have an opportunity to transition into a story about something cool that happened to you the last time you travelled. Don’t have any cool travelling stories? Pick an aspect of travel and relate that to a different area of your life.

Just remember: your ultimate goal is to make your date feel good. This is not the time to talk about when your puppy died or the last bit of wisdom Me-Maw had to offer. Save that for later.

Guys, there is nothing wrong with "pick up tricks." Most of the time we can see through them anyway and we're playing along because we like you.

What is bad is misleading your intentions and using women as objects if they are also not using you for flat sexual gratification.

Picking up women and cultivating interest in her and also her interest in you is kinda the idea.

Otherwise this sounds like "Wanting to be with a woman sexually is bad, shame on you!"

And as a girl I'm looking around saying "Okkkaaaaaayyyyyy, that's no fun for anyone. Let's try this again."

I don't understand how on the one hand we have people so frustrated because they are so reserved that they can't make a connection with people they want to make a genuine connection with, and on the other when given advice on how to reach out and make those deeper connections it is being shot down as "manipulative, creepy, PUA (read a**hole)" behavior.

Can you let us, the women who agreed to a date with you, mostly because we see the potential for a deeper connection because you are cute and interesting, decide this? Please. If we didn't see the potential for the connection, we wouldn't be out on the date.

It's okay to seek to deepen that.

really guys, it's okay.

Just don't lie and treat women like a means to another notch in the bedpost.

Yes, because every man on the planet is only ever interested in sex at all ever and any man who so much as implies that he is interested in an actual relationship is clearly lying to get into a woman's pants, amirite? </sarcasm>

I like what Jess is saying here. As you can tell from my chosen handle, I've had some experience with Pick-up Artist culture. I came to it as a lonely, frustrated boy, seeking to understand all the aspects of flirtation/romance/sexuality that seemed to come so naturally to other people. I certainly encountered some ugly attitudes towards women that, and I can see why people would be wary of anything associated with Pick-up Artistry. I also saw advice that seemed purely for making interactions between people who might conceivably be attracted to each other more fun for both parties, in a way that's compatible with sex-positive feminism.

I may be self-justifying – I'm far from perfect, I've still got a lot of the "Commodity view of Sexuality" that the doc wrote about in an earlier article kicking about in my psyche (probably what drew me to the PUA community in the first place), and a healthy dose of guilt associated with it – but I think things like the doc's talking about can help in healthy relationships and need not be tainted by the association with Pickup Artistry.

In my mind, the chemistry-building stuff could be seen either as a manipulative attempt to fake a connection that's not there, or as a way of making initial interactions more enjoyable for all concerned, and creating space for such a connection to grow, and sometimes it's tricky to tell the difference – particularly when you don't know how your own desires are going to grow.

I just want to add, for those who are afraid of rejection and what it says about them, that if the chemistry doesn't end up happening, or doesn't end up happening enough, you shouldn't assume it's because you did something wrong. There are a lot of people in the world and you're not going to click with everyone. Even in my limited dating experience, I went out a few times with a guy I thought was interesting and good-looking and whom I enjoyed talking with, but for no reason I can explain I felt no desire to so much as kiss him. No physical attraction whatsoever. So obviously that wasn't going to work out, and to be honest I was kind of annoyed with myself about it, but sometimes it's just… there, or it's not. And it wasn't at all his fault, or because he did too much of X or not enough of Y.

That's a good point, Mel. I've had that happen too. When you try to deepen things or find connections, you just aren't on the same page and the interest isn't there. It happens, and it isn't because one side of the party was doing it wrong.

Talk about the fact that the most informative cover of TDKR shootings came from Reddit and how people reached out through the website for support and to spread news while "proper" information channels were still only giving muddled facts.
From there talk about how the idea of news reporting is evolving, that newscasters are no longer trusted as they were 40 or 30 years ago, instead more and more people look for direct witness accounts.
From this point you can have a two hour conversation with someone on any of a dozen topics: Evolution on media with the rise of the internet, use of social media in society for reporting and spreading news, arab spring, this generation's reliance (or over reliance?) on internet to deliver news to them, humorous discussion of the Kony fad. etc. etc. etc.,

Like the doctor said, you can talk with interest about almost anything. it does require trying though.

“So what’s the most exciting, whacked out thing you’ve ever done and please don’t tell me it was something lame like sneaking into a movie you didn’t pay for…”

Loved this example – it helps me understand better how should a teasing flirt sound like in general, thus helping me understand better the concept of flirting – a concept that I am completley ignorant about as of now.
Please try and add more examples like this in your future posts doc – I found this one to be very clear and I even imagined the appropriate tone and attitude it should have when said aloud.

I think the most important point you made was showing interest. Women are absolutely oblivious to this for some reason. I guess they're nothing like us men (we think that every woman is interested). The first thing you should do is show interest, because if you don't she will never know.

[…] Despite what we’ve been told over and over again, opposites don’t actually attract; in fact, dating success correlates far more to shared interests. You don’t need to match up 100%, but the more you have in common – in interests and in lifestyle – the more likely you are to click. […]